Arena Brawl is a competitive minigame on the Hypixel Network. Players use sets of melee and ranged abilities to fight enemies, in teams or solo. It has four skill categories featuring Offensive, Utility, Support and Ultimate skills. You can also upgrade your player stats including Health, Energy, Melee damage, Cooldown reduction and Runes. The game was officially released to everyone on the Network around March 2014, following a lengthy beta period.

Your full HP is 2000 (2200 with max upgrades), and your base damage is 10 per sword hit. You can right click with your sword to activate your offensive skill (by default Fireball). Your base energy is 100 (120 with max upgrades), which regenerates over time. Your base stats can be upgraded in the Combat Upgrades section of the Shop.

You also have 3 other skills, your Utility (glowstone), Support (Lime Dye), and Ultimate (Orange Dye).

Your Support skill is a cooldown based skilltype that provides healing damage prevention effects to the user/users team. Abilities range from instant heals to Heal Over Time structures you place down. Different support skills have different benefits and drawbacks, for example player-spawned structures (such as Healing Totem) can be broken by the opposing team, but provide lots of healing over time.

Your utility skill is a cooldown based skilltype that players can utilize to give themselves an advantage in a situation. Abilities range from teleporting to enemies to providing protection around a player. They are often uses synonymously with Support skills for a desired effect, such as the Barricade and Healing Totem combo.

Your Ultimate skill is a one-time use skilltype that can be activated 1 minute into the game.

The rating system in Arena Brawl provides you with a numerical 'rating' that is supposed to reflect a players skill level. Players gain and lose rating from winning and losing ranked 2v2 matches. Rating is applied according to a customized version of the Glicko rating system designed by the developers. In short, players will gain more rating by beating players with higher rating than them, and lose more rating by losing to players lower than them. If two teams have exactly the same rating, the winners will receive +16 and the losers -16. The leaderboard in Arena Brawl is predominantly based off rating (although there is now also a 1v1 win leaderboard).

The rating system, in the way it awards/subtracts rating on wins/losses, does not conserve rating. Players have abused the way this works in order to "spawn in" rating that didn't exist before, therefore giving rating to a certain group of players. This act is known as "boosting" and has been a large problem at the top (leaderboard) levels of the game in the past.

The armor a player wears in the lobby and in-game reflects their rating, having higher ratings be rewarded with higher tier armor (armor is purely cosmetic). Here is a list of the ratings required for each armor tier:

Bronze (leather): 0

Iron: 1400

Gold: 1700

Diamond: 2000

March 2016: Rumor has it, a new rating system will be implemented about halfway through the month, changing how rating works substantially. The above will probably become depricated.

The 1v1 mode is an UNRANKED mode. This means that your rating is not affected in this gamemode. This mode has two players going head to head with all the usual mechanics of Arena Brawl. There is a leaderboard for the most amount of wins in this mode.

The 2v2 mode is a RANKED mode. This means that you will gain or lose rating depending on whether you win or lose. 2v2 (sometimes referred to as 2's) is the main gamemode and all skills are theoretically balanced around it. It is currently the only ranked gamemode in Arena Brawl. The mode features 4 players (in groups of 2) fighting using all four skill catagories Arena Brawl has to offer. Players can develop strategies using teamwork to outsmart and outplay the enemy, and use complimentary skill setups that work well with their teammates. There is a leaderboard for highest rating in this mode.

The 4v4 mode is an UNRANKED mode. This means that your rating is not affected in this gamemode. The mode features 8 players (in groups of 4) fighting using the four skill categories Arena Brawl has to offer. This mode is slightly more chaotic as there are double the amount of people and skills being used. There is a leaderboard for the most amount of wins in this mode.

The shop has new content that you can purchase with Coins. You can buy new abilities, upgrade your player, and equip hats or swords you find in the Magical Chest. Upgrading your player is the most notable form of progression and is exponential; upgrades become more expensive up to their maximum level (9). Buying a booster allows players to tip Coins to you, enabling fast progression.

Offensive Skills are your main damage output in Arena Brawl. They can do lots of things. Having a good offensive skill is often what will make a win come true. Some skills take longer to charge up and do lots of damage, while others don't take so long but does minor damage. You will need a certain amount of energy to use your skill. Every skill has it's own energy requirement. The energy will charge up by it self.

Boulder Toss (Energy Cost 80): Launch a large boulder that will shatter after colliding with the ground, dealing 225 damage to enemies nearby. Launching a boulder directly under a player's feet will immobilize them for 2 seconds. Explosion Radius: 5 - Cost: 2400

Cookie Shotgun (Energy Cost 60): Fire 7 cookies in a cone in front of you that each deal 27 damage. - Cost: 12000

Falcon Punch (Energy Cost 100): Charging your fists will immobilize you for 1 second. Charged fists can break any structure with a single hit, or will deal 260 damage on your next melee hit. - Cost: 25000

Fireball (Energy Cost 40): Shoot a fireball that will explode for 95 damage. A direct hill will cause the enemy to take an additional 10 damage. Explosion Radius: 4 - Default Offensive Skill

Freezing Breath (Energy Cost 90): Breathe cold air in a cone in front of you, dealing 200 damage instantly. If an enemy is hit by the breath, they will be slowed for 2 seconds. Breath Range: 8 - Cost: 25000

Utility Skills can do a lot of stuff. Their main use however is to get away from the enemy, some skills however works a bit differently. These are important if you want to heal up. A lot of players will use their Utility Skills and Support Skill at once. To get the enemy away and then heal up at the same time. These don't consume energy, but do have cooldowns, and some skills have different cooldowns.

Support skills are your main source of helping you survive longer. They can heal you or reduce the amount of damage that you take. They are sometimes used in conjunction with the Ulitiy Skills. They do not consume energy, but that have cooldowns that vary with the skill.
For a list of Support Skills please view them here.

Doom Shroom: Plant a giant mushroom that will damage all enemies within 15 blocks for 20 damage per second while it grows. Once grown, the mushroom will let out a final burst of 400 damage and destroys all structures. Can be destroyed by melee hits. - Cost: 35000

A rune is a special perk, which gives your hits a small chance to apply a special effect. There are currently four runes you can buy/upgrade and you can only have on active at when playing, every upgrade adds 2% to that specific rune. Here is a list of all four runes:

Rune of Slowing - Every melee hit has a 12-24% chance to slow the enemy for 3 seconds.

Rune of Speed - Every melee hit has a 12-24% chance to speed you up for 30 seconds.

Rune of Energy - Every melee hit has a 12-24% chance to restore 10 energy for you.

Rune of Damage - Every melee hit has a 24-48% chance to deal double damage.

A combat upgrade is a perk which increases your basic stats, such as weapon damage and maximum health. There are currently four combat upgrades, and all of them are active at the same time.
Note that the final upgrade for each perk increases your stats more than stated above.

Melee Upgrade - Increases the damage you deal with your melee attacks from 10.0 to 12.0 damage. Each upgrade adds up to a total of 0.22 damage.

Health Upgrade - Increases the health you spawn with from 2000.0 to 2200.0 health. Each upgrade adds 22 health.

Hats are purely cosmetical objects which can be found in the Magical Chest and have two uses: they replace your head when selected and they have a chance to show on of the sayings listed below when you are attacked. The rarity of the hat indicates the chance that you will get that hat from the Magical Chest. These are common, rare and epic. It's a completely random chance.

Arena Brawl used to have a system where you would enter a virtual queue and stay in the lobby.

Arena Brawl is one of the least updated games on the server. When it was released back in March, it got updates until May 2014 where they stopped coming completely. An update didn't arrive until a year later with two Arena Brawl updates in May 2015.

There was an FFA (1v1v1v1) mode during the beta period. It never made it out of beta, however, and was replaced with 4v4 for official release.

Hypixel has stated on the forums that Arena Brawl is his "fav gamemode", much to the disbelief of the majority of the community.

Arena Brawl was planned to be replaced by Warlords, but due to community pushback and cooperation behind the scenes by certain Arena community members, Warlords became it's own gamemode and Arena Brawl reserved it's place on the Hypixel network.